We are nearly 217 days away from celebrating the most important multisport event that has been held in Chile. The Santiago 2023 Pan American and Parapan American Games are the main entrance hall for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and the event that will give the most quotas to the five rings sport event in the world.
#Santiago2023 will be a historic milestone that will be a turning point in Chilean sport history. In less than seven months, #Santiago2023 will join nearly nine thousand athletes and Para athletes from 41 countries of the Americas.
In summary, #Santiago2023 will provide Olympic qualifications in 21 conventional disciplines and in six Paralympic disciplines. The biggest multisport event of the continent will be a great opportunity for athletes from the Americas, and also for all those people who integrate the #TeamChile, who will have the chance to compete in their own house, near the national public, friends, and family.
Overall, the #Santiago2023 Pan American Games will have 33 qualifying disciplines for the Olympic Games, 21 of those will have a direct pass and 12 through rankings or marks. In the Parapan American Games, 6 sports will have quota without scales to Paris 2024 and 9 will give points in circuits linked with other competitions.
We will share information about the #Santiago2023 disciplines that provide a direct quota for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Which Pan American sports will provide quotas for Paris 2024?
1. Handball
Handball is a sport in which several points are added during each game. Each team is composed of seven players (six players and a goalkeeper). At the same time, it has seven reserve players that can replace their partners at any moment.
2. Boxing
Two opponents in a ring. The person that hits the head and torso of its opponent with more style will achieve the victory. This popular sport has had great figures in its wide history, aside from movies and books that have become part of the collective memory, all this means that boxing will be a sport with a lot of attention. In Santiago 2023, this sport will provide direct quotas for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
3. Breaking
One of the biggest #Santiago2023 news is breaking, an urban dance style that is part of the Hip-hop movement. It mixes dance, acrobatics, skills, and abilities of the athletes to move at the rhythm of the music. It’s the first time this sport will be part of the Pan American Games.
4. Divings
Divings are part of the aquatic sports and there is no doubt this will be one of the most attractive sports during the Pan American Games. Getting propel from a three meter trampoline or throwing themselves from a ten meter platform, the divers will make a combination of twists and somersaults, making a big impression in the public.
In this spectacular discipline divers receive a punctuation according to their execution level, which is averaged with the difficulty jump grade. It’s a competition that no one wants to miss.
This is the maximum expression of horse training and elegance. The horses and their jockeys get into an arena of 60 x 20 meters, where the panel of judges qualifies the duo. This happens while they carry out mandatory movements such as: walk, trot, and gallop according to a pattern. There is also a freestyle routine, specifically choreographed by each competitor and interpreted with music.
The Equestrian Eventing is another kind of equestrian test. Its first edition was during the Buenos Aires 1951 Games. It’s a combination of jumping, dressage, and cross country. It’s often known as the triathlon of the equestrian world; it’s developed during three consecutive days: the first day is the dressage test, the second day is the cross country test, and the third day is the jumping test.
The Equestrian Jumping discipline consists of a synchronization based on the horse and jockey’s capacity to jump over a series of obstacles. It’s a combination of courage, control, and technical ability. This discipline tests speed, power, and control, while horses and jockeys try to establish a route of approximately 15 jumps with no failure. The winner is the duo that carries out fewer failures in less time possible.
Sport Climbing has had a great peak in Chile and around the world. It’s highlighted by the speed and skills that it requires, provoking a huge excitement to the spectators. It was recently incorporated in the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games sport program and during its debut in #Santiago2023 will provide a quota for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
Female Artistic Gymnastics combine speed, strength, coordination, and elegance. All those artistic and acrobatic abilities are achieved thanks to a special technique emphasis. It’s a speciality developed in four equipment: vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor. The female competition offers a high technical exhibition and plasticity, it requires a lot of mental and physical preparation.
Male Artistic Gymnastics combines speed, strength, coordination, and elegance. All those artistic and acrobatic abilities are achieved thanks to a special technique emphasis. It’s a speciality developed in six equipments, such as: horses, rings or floor. The male competition offers an exhibition of strength, where the athletes challenge gravity and get over physical limits that are executed in six equipments: floor, side horse, rings, vault, parallel and horizontal bars.
Rhythmic Gymnastics is a discipline that combines elements of dance and acrobatics, combined in concordance with music. It develops artistic expression, elegance, skill, coordination, flexibility, and the relationship between music and movement with the use of different equipment. This modality considers routines with four types of equipment: hoop, balls, pin, and ribbon. It’s developed in an official area of 13 x 13 with different formats for individual and team competitions.
Trampoline Gymnastics is a very attractive discipline because it generates acrobatics at a higher height, with more speed, and with multiple somersault twists. The gymnasts carry out acrobatics from a height of 8 meters, and are capable of practically flying. This is one of the newest Pan American disciplines because it was performed for the first time during Guadalajara 2011 with male and female participation.
12. Field Hockey
Field Hockey is a sport in which two teams of 11 players each face each other to get a ball on the opposite team goal with the help of a specialized stick. Goals are valid once the ball is touched inside the area by the opponent team. The court is rectangular with a synthetic field. Chile has its first public court at the Estadio Nacional, whose field has the highest international standards validated by the International Hockey Federation.
Artistic Swimming, discipline that is part of the Santiago 2023 aquatic sports, combines arts, beauty, precision, and synchronization. An important milestone will be during the Pan American Games due to the fact that from this year, the participation of two male athletes in their teams will be allowed. The athletes carry out extraordinary strength, flexibility, and resistance feats. In addition, while acrobatics are perfectly choreographed, the athletes carry out long-term apnoeas in different moments of their routines combined with acrobatics, jumping, technical elements, and hybrids that are evaluated according to different difficulty grades.
Modern Pentathlon is an Olympic and a very symbolic sport because the five Olympic Games are inspired by the five Modern pentathlon tests. Those tests are: fencing (sword), Swimming (200 meters Freestyle), Equestrian (obstacle jump event), Laser-run (five circuits of 600 meters race, each with a round of five shots with a laser gun at an electronic target). Thus, Athletes make 20 shots and 3.000 meters running. Thanks to a variety of innovations, Modern Pentathlon has become an even more demanding sport, which takes athletes to their limits. Only those with exceptional physical and mental stamina, while also mastering the five disciplines, may take the gold home.
15. Water Polo
Water Polo is a pool discipline in which two teams face each other. The objective of the game is to score as many goals as possible on the opposite team goal. The teams are made of six players and one goalkeeper that differentiate from each other because of the color on their caps. There are faults, temporary and definite expulsions. A game is divided into four times of effective game (when the ball is on the game) of eight minutes each. This intense discipline requires their players to stand out because of their physical resistance, good reflexes and good swimmers.
Water Polo will take place in the Valparaíso region and will provide a direct quota for the next Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
16. Surfing
Surfing is an aquatic sport that consists in balancing over a specialized board that moves over the waves. During the competition, surfers choose the direction, and it must be followed by all participants, whether it be left or right, based on their priority and according to the rules of priorities and interferences. If they are not followed, the competitor will be penalized.
17. Tennis
Tennis is a sport that demands from the players a complete mastery of different strike and spin techniques. It also requires great physical and mental stamina, to execute the quick body movements we see. The typical strokes known are: the serve, forehand, backhand, lob, volley, slice, and smash, among others.
18. Table tennis
Table tennis is one of the most practiced sports in the world. Played individually, in doubles or mixed doubles, the objective is to hit the ball so it goes above the net and bounces in the middle of the adversary table, in such a way that the opponent cannot reach it or hit it back properly.
19. Shooting
In Shooting there are three disciplines: rifle, pistol, and shotgun. In rifle and pistol athletes shoot at fixed targets in a shooting range, and in shotgun, they shoot at moving targets. Even though physical condition is important, athletes in this sport also need to have a great mental strength, since it tests the precision and concentration through handling a firearm or compressed air weapon. Victory may depend on a single shot.
20. Archery
Archery is a precision sport. Its practice requires a large concentration ability, skills, and nerves of steel, where mental strength is key for the victory. However, we must not underestimate the physical training of archers. The archery range where the competition is held is a flat surface, preferably grass, in which the shooting line is marked, and ahead of it towards the target, parallel lines are placed. The competition is performed in two modalities "recurve bow" that is shot from a 70 m distance for male and female with a 122 cm diameter and 10 rings target; and compound bow, which is shot at a 50 m distance with an 80 cm and 6 rings target for both male and female.
21. Sailing
Sailing is a nautical sport that has as an objective to control a vessel that is boosted only by wind. The course has to be finished as fast as possible. To achieve this, the athlete has to be capable of dominating the changing conditions of the sea and wind.
According to the information given by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), there will be six sports that will provide a direct quota to France, while the other nine, for now, will only have points inside a ranking along with other competitions.
Which Parapan American sports will provide a quota for Paris 2024?
Wheelchair basketball is characterized by its dynamism, speed, and emotion. It was born after the Second World War to help injured soldiers during their rehab. Its beauty, strength, and speed make it a sport with several athletes and spectators. It’s estimated that, around the world, there are 100 thousand people who play wheelchair basketball in a recreational or high performance capacity.
Blind football is a dynamic discipline for visually impaired athletes. It is played with a sound ball and two teams, made up of five players each. The players, wearing patches and goggles, receive guidance and verbal instructions from the goalkeeper, coach, and guide with the aim of scoring goals against the opposing team. This sport is an “adaptation” of football in a conventional field.
3. Goalball
Goalball is a sport created for people with visual impairment and two teams of three players each participate. Competitors have to throw the ball towards the other team's goal, while their opponents try to block the ball with the full extension of their body.
Para table tennis is an open sport for Para athletes with physical and intellectual impairments, and maybe another kind of functional impairment. There are individual, teams, and doubles tests, for both: female and male categories. Athletes compete divided in eleven classes according to the grade of impairment. This is a Para sport related to skills and speed. It can be played in a wheelchair or standing.
This extraordinary and versatile discipline combines rugby and basketball. Players compete in teams of four to pass the ball through the goal line on the adversary’s field. The contact between the wheelchairs is not only allowed, but it is an integral part of the sport: players use their wheelchairs to block opponents. In fact, the base is the strength that athletes must have in their trunk and upper limbs.
Wheelchair tennis has grown at a great rhythm and now it’s totally integrated inside the four Grand Slam, the most important events in this discipline. The Para athletes use wheelchairs specially designed for this sport.
